Notable Cast: Anthony Mackie, Harrison Ford, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Tim Blake Nelson, Carl Lumbly, Giancarlo Esposito, Liv Tyler, Xosha Roquemore, Johannes Haukur Johannesson
Although many fans seem to have been burned by the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) at this point, the series' transition in the wake of waning audience interest and a relatively public meltdown over its future makes the current slate perhaps more fascinating than the last half-decade. Attempting to soft reboot the MCU with a new Captain America film certainly seems like gold on paper, but the fourth film in this series within the grander franchise is far more fascinating in the larger context than “good” as a film.
Captain America: Brave New World is heavily focused on bridging the past and the future. Even the title, although perhaps hard to swallow when compared to the iconic book that shares it, seems to indicate a strange relationship between what has happened before and where it wants to be. That’s not to say that every MCU film hasn’t been aggressively obsessed with callbacks and flashforwards, but the relationship here in Brave New World is one of the most unusual.
In the wake of Avengers: Endgame, the world changed. That applies to both the film itself and the fictionalized reality its characters inhabit. There was no more Captain America. Or Chris Evans. No more Iron Man. Or Robert Downey Jr. (…at the time of its release). Disney was struggling to find their voice and plot with new heroes, despite some genuine successes in films like Shang-Chi or misfires like The Eternals. The meteoric descent of Jonathon Majors left the new era without its Kang the Conqueror and a gap for a new major villain. And while the series was retooled, pulling away from a variety of increasingly ignored Disney+ shows, they needed a breather.
That’s where Captain America: Brave New World falls into place.
